ACAMSmoneylaundering.com: Poor Due Diligence Facilitated South Sudanese Graft and Laundering Scheme: Sources

A Macedonian bank released $48 million in frozen funds after Uganda’s chief prosecutor gave assurances that the payments in question were above board.

But documents recently obtained by the Sentry, a branch of a nonprofit group that investigates corruption in East Africa, appear to show that the funds were embezzled from South Sudan’s public coffers and should have remained in the lender’s custody.

Nearly a decade ago, on the verge of their country’s formal secession from Sudan, South Sudan’s government in waiting decided to buy a mobile radar system and, in the absence of robust financial controls, transferred $65 million to a Ugandan firm reportedly owned by one of their highest-ranking generals, Bior Ajang Duot, to manage the purchase.

On Dec. 23, 2009, Duot’s company, Cascade Construction, wired $30 million to Airservices, a Macedonian aviation firm, ostensibly to pay for the radar, and sent another $25 million the following February, according to a report published by the Sentry this month…

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